


Temporary

by luoup (ravenic)



Series: Team the Best Team [Platonic VLD Week 2.0] [9]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Platonic VLD Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-29 02:13:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11431023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenic/pseuds/luoup
Summary: Day 5 Prompt 1: TemporaryKeith and Pidge decide to work together





	Temporary

**Author's Note:**

> this draws on the idea that keith and pidge knew each other before voltron and were working together to find out what happened to the kerberos mission. 
> 
> if that’s something you’re into, i go into more detail in a fic called [Keith & Katie vs. the World](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9917906), which is soon to have a sequel (before s3 comes out, if all goes well).

It’s temporary, she tells herself. She’s only working with him because he’s the only one who believes her, the only one who has the same stakes. Katie doesn’t like Keith much, but right now he’s the only person in the world who can help her and she’s not too proud to know when she needs the assist. Even she has to admit that breaking into the Garrison is a lot easier with a partner.

It’s temporary, he tells himself. He’s only working with her because she’s the only one who believes him, the only one who knows what it’s like to have a brother who’s missing but not _gone._ Keith doesn’t like Katie much, but right now she’s the only person in the world who can get into the Garrison files where somewhere the truth is hidden. He’s not too proud to admit that he’s nowhere near good enough to do that. Besides, going through all the information is way easier with a partner.

They click weirdly fast. They have a system – Keith helps Katie get into the Garrison, Katie goes through every computer she can find while Keith stands watch, and then they retreat to his room (his roommate is never there, always out partying and avoiding Keith) to go through whatever she was able to retrieve. What Katie doesn’t understand Keith knows, because he’s been going to the Garrison schools for years, and what Keith can barely read Katie gets instantly, because she’s way too smart for her age and her reading level is probably lightyears beyond that of most of the generals here. Between the two of them, they’ve got it. Between the two of them, they tear through everything the Galaxy Garrison has, on Kerberos and everything else – hey, if they’re going to break the rules, they might as well go big, because there’s no going home like this.

Between the two of them, they can do anything.

Then, of course, it goes bad, because it seems everything does eventually. Keith gets himself kicked out to keep Katie from being discovered, and Katie gets found out eventually and gets herself banned. Keith moves out into the desert and looks for the source of the singing coming from somewhere in the sands, and Katie cuts her hair and changes her name and goes straight back into the Garrison.

They keep working together. Katie – Pidge, now – still doesn’t get everything in the files, and Keith needs Pidge’s tech to help him understand the pictographs and the humming. It’s for Matt and Shiro, but there is more now. The Galaxy Garrison is starting to seem like a rotting fruit, secrets and lies and corruption seeping through in every top-secret file they read, and this thing in the desert is starting to seem bigger than they could ever have imagined.

Pidge complains about their team. Keith complains about coyotes. Keith brings Pidge weird things he finds in the dunes and caves of the desert, and Pidge brings Keith food and candles and wifi boosters. Pidge tries not to get discovered, and Keith tries not to get arrested.

They grow close. Keith learns how to be stealthy, how to sneak past people and evade security technology. Pidge learns how to hold a knife, how to fight against opponents who are much larger than they are (because all opponents are much larger than they are). They argue about cryptids and space history and science. Keith teaches Pidge how to drive his hoverbike, or at least not crash it, and Pidge teaches Keith how to steal internet from the air itself, or so it seems to him.

Keith talks about Shiro. Pidge talks about Matt. They don’t talk about where they might be now.

Still, the faintest bit of distance remains between them. Neither ever speaks it, but there’s this wordless concept between them that once the Kerberos Team is found (because they will be found, and they will be alright, it’s the only permissible ending), whatever is happening between them will end. Keith won’t text Pidge in between their classes. Pidge won’t send Keith some interesting article they found on the internet. They won’t look at the stars together or talk about the unnamed things hiding somewhere in the desert. There’s this idea, somewhere deep down in both of their minds, that once they find their brothers they will stop connecting. It’s not that they want to stop, they just… this thing formed because of the lies spread about Kerberos, and it makes sense in a way that it would end when that ends.

Then Pidge’s scans pick up an incoming spacecraft one night, and everything changes.

It’s only later – so much later, after Shiro and the Blue Lion, after the castle and the aliens – only after Voltron, when they become the Green and Red Paladins, the Arms, that they finally realize it.

There was never anything temporary about their teamwork.

**Author's Note:**

> team arms: still my favorite.


End file.
